Most modern automotive vehicles include tether bracket assemblies for securing child seats to the vehicle. It is known in the prior art to secure the tether bracket assembly to the rear wall of the automotive vehicle, for example in a truck. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,407,215 issued Aug. 5, 2008, (which is herein incorporated by references) discloses a tether bracket assembly which is directly bolted to the rear wall of the truck. The attachment of the tether bracket assembly to the rear wall provides the required stability for the child safety seat.
However, modern automotive vehicles, typically trucks, include openable rear windows. The rear windows are either electronically or manually lowered such that the rear window is positioned within the rear wall of the truck in the open position. The placement of the rear window within the rear wall decreases the rigidity of the rear wall as the rear wall is now required to house a window. The decrease in the rigidity inhibits the ability to secure the tether bracket assembly to the rear wall due to the reduction in structural integrity of the rear wall.
Further, the direct attachment of a tether bracket assembly to a seat assembly often results in undesirable connections. For example, the attachment of the tether bracket assembly to the seat back positions the connection, such as a weld, in a manner that upon the application of a load the integrity of the weld is compromised. Specifically, the tether is positioned such that upon loading, the tether bracket assembly is pulled away from the seat back thereby increasing the failure rate of the weld.
Thus, there exists a need for an improved tether bracket assembly, independent of the rear wall of the vehicle, attaches to a seat back and is independent of a rear wall of a vehicle, and which during the application of a load maintains the integrity of the connection.